If you’re like most prospective MBA students, you’ve spent a lot of time researching programs to find the right school for you. But on top of all of the work involved in finding and applying to MBA programs, it’s important to think about what will happen once you’ve enrolled. Your time in school is valuable, and it’s up to you to make the most of your MBA experience.
With six-figure tuition and 2 years of forgone salary, You deserve a strong return on your investment. Fortunately, business schools have responded, and they arm their students with lots of resources, programs, and experts to help their students achieve their goals. But this can also be challenging. With so many great opportunities and priorities, how do you know where to invest your time, or what to take advantage of to make the most of your experience?
I know this personally, as an MBA graduate myself, but also because I talked to hundreds of MBA students for my upcoming book, MBA Insider: How to Make The Most of Your MBA Experience, to discuss their time in business school, and to learn the tips and best practices they used for maximizing their time as MBA students. Here are some tips I’ve learned on how you can make the most of your MBA experience and achieve your own goals.
Tip 1: Chart Your Own Course
One of the benefits of going to business school is the chance to be surrounded by lots of intelligent, hard-working, and career-driven individuals. This can also be a challenge. When you are surrounded by so many other talented and driven individuals, it can cause you to feel insecure. It can be easy to feel overwhelmed when you are surrounded by many smart people, which can often lead to questioning your abilities. To quell this fear, it’s important to spend time thinking about what you actually want and what your own goals are.
Jasmine Ako (Yale, SOM, ‘19) learned this while at Yale. She made sure to focus on understanding her own goals, and then making decisions that aligned to them. “Intentionally following my passions and interests helped me quell the imposter syndrome I had,” Ako said. Furthermore, upon reflection, Ako realized that when she honored her interests, it allowed her to focus on her values and vision for success, not those of others. “The situations where I thrived the most were when I pursued activities, opportunities, and electives that were aligned to me. It always just felt right.”
Tip 2: Allocate Your Time to Your Priorities
Business school throws so many demands and opportunities at students that it’s easy to be overwhelmed or second guess how to spend your time. It’s easy to feel FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). With so many great opportunities and not enough time, it can feel like you are constantly missing out on a big opportunity or super amazing experience. Time is one of your most valuable assets, and business school forces you to learn how to make the most of it. The key to doing this is by ensuring that your priorities are aligned to how you spend your time. This means you need to: A) know what your priorities are; and B) choose activities that align to what those priorities are.
Finally, while the MBA experience is unique, and students should take advantage of everything they can, it’s important to acknowledge that it’s impossible to do everything. Letting go of the desire to “do everything” can help students get out of the thoughts of FOMO and feel confident in their decisions.
When Jeff and Katie Ellington (Wharton, ’17) entered Wharton, they had recently gotten married and moved across the country. In addition to adjusting to the rigors of the MBA program, they also knew they wanted to make time for each other. “We had to really prioritize the things that were important to us, which meant that we were very clear on what we wanted to say yes to,” said Katie.”
Tip 3: Invest in Relationships
Getting the chance to build relationships and lifelong friendships are other often-cited benefits of the MBA experience. These relationships are great not just for business school, but for the rest of your career. Rarely are you in a position where you are surrounded by hundreds of like-minded but still diverse peers in such a close proximity. Since you’re often spending lots of time with these individuals, it gives you a chance to build strong relationships. Some happen as a result of shared experiences.
Tony Morash (UNC Kenan-Flagler, ’16) spent almost every day with his fellow officers in the Management Consulting Club. He formed strong relationships with these classmates, and they still take a yearly trip together. According to Morash, “When you’re working alongside people every day for a few hours, you get the chance to know them, learn from them, and enjoy the experience with them.” To this day, some of the people Morash worked with are some of his closest friends, who have supported each other long since their time in business school ended.
Tip 4: Experiment and Take Risks
While failure isn’t “free,” it costs a lot less in a learning environment such as business school. As such, it is a great opportunity to take intelligent risks, and to stretch yourself. Whether that’s by taking a class you normally wouldn’t have taken because it was on a subject you weren’t strong in, taking on a club leadership role or exploring an entrepreneurial idea, the MBA experience gives you the opportunity to try new things. While you know things may not work out, you also can rest assured that everything will still be OK.
During his time at Wharton, Colin Keeler (Wharton, ‘19) decided to start his own company, BeenThere. While this was an inherent risk, Keeler knew was surrounded with resources and access to people to support him along the way. “I realized that the cost of trying something was higher than failing, especially in a place like business school,” Keeler said.
Tip 5: Learn how to Learn
Students come to business school to get an MBA degree to learn, but what’s also important is not only to learn new skills and ideas, but actually to learn “how to learn.” This means developing a muscle for learning, so that when you are put into positions where you have to learn, you know how to do it and do it fast, which allows you to contribute and apply new skills. As a former consultant, Nick Johnson (NYU Stern, ‘15) was used to being thrown into a situation with a new client in a new industry that he had never worked in and getting up to speed fast.
When he was in business school and was put in a situation where he had to learn a new academic subject, or learn a new skill to tackle a group project, his ability to learn quickly was instrumental to his learning and development. “It’s impossible to expect yourself to learn an entirely new subject in three months, but if you can pick up the fundamentals and augment it with real-world examples or insights from your classmates, you can start to connect the dots and apply it right away,” said Johnson.
Tip 6: Practice Self-Reflection and Self-Awareness
Business school is a unique experience because it gives you two years to hit the pause button to develop and work on yourself and your career. This is a great time to take a step back, hit the pause button, and not only reflect on what you’ve done but where you want to go. But reflection isn’t something that happens naturally for most. Because life can get busy, it can be difficult to find the time. During her time in business school, Shannon Griesser (Fuqua, ‘19) made reflection a priority amidst the many other activities. She tried to make space to reflect on her experiences and what she learned, and she used those reflections to inform her future decision making.
On a regular basis, Griesser would take time to write down her ideas or thoughts on what she was learning or experiencing, and then to reflect on how they could help her work toward the goals she set for herself. She often revisited those goals, to check her sanity, and to make sure that she was truly on track.
Furthermore, Griesser also relied on others to get feedback. A critical component to helping you make sense of your experiences is having experts and thought leaders like professors, professionals, and administrators advising you as you work through your reflection and learning. With so many of these people around you, their feedback can help guide your own development.
While everyone’s MBA experience is unique, following these tips ensures you can take make the most of the experience and achieve your own goals.